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Hey Poopface, It’s Your Birthday

22 Apr

It seems like the blog post writing went by the wayside around the same time the hubby went into remission and I promptly started menopause. I was thinking the other day about how, on a warm summer night, I’d pour a glass of vino and head out back with my laptop to craft up a humorous take on that day’s shenanigans. But then. It seemed like things weren’t quite as funny anymore. I think cancer (or teenagers?) took away my humor nerve. At least that’s what I’m going to run with. It certainly won’t be that whole tired “I’m too busy” refrain. Or that I’m just not funny any more. But, since I’m here again — wine in hand — I’ll have to let you decide. And you can keep your opinion to yourself. Thankyouverymuch.

And I really couldn’t resist taking this week by the balls and squeezing the ever-loving humor out of it. Here’s why:

On Monday, the landscapers (aka the YARD ELVES) came and magically whisked away winter. At some point, the hubby went outside to inspect (they are new) and then… 

OHSHITWHYISTHATRATTRAPOUTFROMUNDERTHEDECK!!!

(We live in BOULDER and rat poison is VERBOTEN and we will have to move after this is published…but the 2013 flood unleashed the masses from the rocks and crevices and we felt we had no choice. Yes. I do feel awful about any harm to nature. I just fucking hate rats — especially ones that live under MY DECK.) 

Which morphed into: 

CALL.VET!>DOG.IN.CAR!>DOG.STOMACH.PUMPED!>MUST.EAT.CHARCOAL!>TAKE.THIS.VITAMINK!>PLEASE.GOD.DON’T.LET.HER.DIE! (ALSO: LESSON.LEARNED.RAT.POISON.TO.NEVER.RETURN>RATS.SAY.YAY! AND.MOVE.BACK.IN)

Then it was Tuesday. The dog was acting okay with the exception of the stink eye she was giving the hubby. She was shooting him DAGGERS. And I am not exaggerating. She said, “Bitch! You got the LEASH like you were taking me for A WALK! And then… THAT SHIT?!?!” She was ready to knock him one.

Since the week had started out with trauma, I got it into my head that I was going to turn the hubby bday week around. So the minute he left with the girls for the dentist, I jumped into the car and raced to Party City. My plan was to transform the damned house into a birthday wonderland, including a custom song I had made for him (and also my brother, who was the original recipient when he was like 6 and 45s were still the go-to medium), and prosecco on ice. I was going to blow him away. But then.

Mother Nature decided to blow us ALL AWAY and blew in some freaking 100 MPH winds that toppled TREES and SEMIS just as I was heading to the… wait for it…BALLOON STORE.

I was determined though. Went through that store on a mission. Grabbed decorations, candles in the form of a FIVE and a TWO, then went up front and ordered the FIVE and TWO, three-foot high balloons. Then. “OHMYLORD. Wait! He’s fifty-ONE! I need a ONE not a TWO!” “Really?!?” “Really. I’m so sorry. Almost 25 years married and 32 together and I can’t remember how old he is.” Quickly swapped the TWO candle, smiled at the bewildered cashier, paid and opened the door to the parking lot.

I make it to the car. Open the hatch back. Whew. I made it. Then. Shithead WIND whooshes.. WHIPS and throwing the stick out of my bun hair, my Persol sunglasses off of my head and into the sky, hooking the arm on the balloon string. Thereby launching approximately $370 into the ether. I start flailing as my sunglasses flip skyward and eastward and westward and everywhere-ward as I jump and grab and try to catch them without sending said revised FIVE and ONE balloon shapes into the stratosphere. 

I did it. And if that parking lot video isn’t viral yet, keep an eye out. I was lost in the super store parking lot. “Lady with Volvo Goes Beserk with Balloons and Sunglasses in 1 Million MPH Wind.”

I also made it home, decorated the WHOLE FUCKING HOUSE (sweating and swearing) and was on the ready with a smile, prosecco popped, and custom birthday song cued. (Damn, I’m good.)

Then it’s Wednesday. Actual birthday of the hubby. And all I have to do is get a 600-piece mailing campaign print bid approved and off to print, an email campaign finalized, a con call made, an electronic newsletter template proof to a client, another newsletter written, another email campaign written, a red velvet cake made/baked/iced, a hubby birthday hike squeezed in, a shower, another con call or five to negotiate that print bid, and a dinner reservation reached by 5:30 (we’re old, we have kids and this restaurant ain’t easy to get into).

Voila. Did it. ALL. (Even made sure the hubby got to the vet with the dog for rat poison follow up bloodwork.)

Dinner is incredible, gin and tonics delish, view amazing – YES! Get thyself to Corrida. STAT.

We head home with visions of icing and birthday toasts in our head. Open the front door. And WHOOSH. The smell of dog shit is so ripe and so vile that I nearly puke in the bushes. And said dog has her head hung so low in shame that her chin is scraping the floor and she will not make eye contact. 

FUCKFUCKFUCK.

The ‘Not I, said the cats’ came so fast and furious that the birthday boy was knee deep in shit before he even knew what hit him. And it’s not that we didn’t feel BAD. It was just a firm HELL NO. This is the boy’s job. Feminism be damned. (I mean, at least FOR NOW. And I still had ICING to make fershittinsakes.)

The evening came to a screeching halt as the bloody shitstorm was slowly eradicated from the living room rug and we all started to cry because there was BLOOD and SHIT everywhere. And the dog was going to die.

We half-heartedly lit the FIVE and ONE candles on the newly iced cake. Watched as the hubby made his wish and blew while the scented candles flickered around us to cast away the stench and we cast furtive glances at the dog. Who was dead man walking. 

I’m gonna throw in here that this is a family who is very familiar with their shit. It’s been a reluctant focus ever since COLON CANCER 2010. Shits are analyzed, discussed, mulled over, pondered, and shared. So when it is bloody and voluminous and everywhere, we take it seriously.

That night, we slept nary a bit. The pup was up like clockwork. Puking, pooping, whining, pacing. At least every couple of hours. She was miserable. We were worried. We are tired.

The vet is called back on Thursday morning. They tell us that the blood test came back normal. No evidence of rat poisoning. So we breathe a teeny-tiny sigh of relief (and try to figure out how to take a nap in the middle of another balls-to-the-wall work day.)

Thursday night, I go to book group. Discuss Pachinko. Come home to more shit and up all night to more shit.

Friday, I try to plan an impromptu hubby birthday happy hour. No dice. Spontaneity is dead. (Mostly. Two people out of 12 said yes.) We go to dinner with two people. Stop for wine at the the other two’s house. Get home to… yep…MORE SHIT. Teen Queen made it home before us and, heroically, cleaned it up — save the carpet (which is totally impractical WHITE SHAG from Ikea). Score 1 million thousand for TEEN QUEEN!

Friday night, shit show on repeat. I almost throw out a hip leaping out of bed when dog JUMPS up and runs out of our room. This shit is NOT for old people. 

Saturday, vet is called. AGAIN. Dog is barely moving. Turns her head from CHEESE (which she normally explodes from deep sleep IN THE BASEMENT, IN THE DARK for if she just hears the CHEESE DRAWER in the fridge open. Yes, we have a CHEESE DRAWER.). She isn’t eating. Not drinking. It’s pitiful. We KNOW she’s dying. Think we will wake up to dog dead at any moment. 

Vet prescribes meds. The good shit. Dog gets meds SHOVED DOWN HER DAMN THROAT since she won’t even look at HAM.

Approximately 1.25 hours later? Dog is up. And HUNGRY. AND LORD JESUS IT’S A FREAKING MIRACLE.

It’s snowing. There is mud everywhere on the hardwood floors. But DOG is alive. We nearly weep in relief and decide to watch Netflix all day, order in from DoorDash (Yay for Post fried chicken delivered to your door) and rent that stupid Vince Vaughn movie where he fathers 533 children through 693 sperm donations. You know, your typical, family-friendly, warm-fuzzy, feel-good flick.

So, dudes. I’m here to say that when it’s Sunday and it’s sunny. And your beloved dog is barking again and putting her head in your lap for scratches and the floor has been mopped and you’ve just slept a solid eight for the first time in four days…that’s cause for freaking celebration AND a blog post. Amirite?

TODAY’S THEME SONG: Kenny, Captain Zoom. My name is Zoom and I live on the Moon, but I came down to Earth just to sing you this tune, ‘cause KENNY, it’s your birthday TODAY!

LISTEN NOW!

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Seize the Day

28 Jul

On June 25th, the children were nestled all snug on their pallets in the basement. Our temporary daughter for two weeks (love you, Rhys!), and the two permanent ones, had just started to dozIMG_9441e. It had been a long day (bean played a double header). It was a late bed time. The hubby and I had just dozed off too, when a scream from Teen Queen jerked us both awake. “Mom!!! Something’s wrong with Sella!”

When I say we may not have touched a stair when we flew down there, I’m not exaggerating. I didn’t know it was possible to move that fast at my age.

Teen Queen flew UP almost as fast, with temporary daughter right on her heels. She was crying hysterically, but I barely noticed. Focused entirely on bean, who was, at that moment, holding her arm in the air and saying over and over, “Is it my HAND?” I thought, “WTF is she talking about?” Hubby says, “She said she had the hiccups.” Then, she yells that her belly hurts and runs to the bathroom.

So picture all of this happening when you’ve just been woken by a scream. Yea. Chaos.

The next few minutes were us trying to calm down the big girls, trying to calm down bean who was freaked and shaking, trying to figure out exactly what in the ever-loving hell had just happened.

I said, “Just come sleep with us” to bean because TQ and TD were all — no way are we going to be able to sleep if she’s down here. They even moved to the bedroom, trying to erase the memory.

But we, in our infinite wisdom and utter exhaustion, just wanted to go back to bed.

The next morning, the big girls were still freaked. “Mom. Why didn’t you call the ambulance?” asks TQ almost the moment she’s up. And that’s when I started digging in. Questioning them both, in detail, separately. Then together. And the picture starts to come into focus finally at around 11am the next morning. And it was this:

She was making a weird sound that woke up the big girls. They thought it was the dog tapping on the floor. Then they realize it’s bean. TQ grabs her head and turns her over. Sees she is shaking violently and flips on the light to see her eyes rolled back in her head. Screams for us. Said she was choking and she thought she couldn’t breathe.

So I freak. I tell the hubby, “She had a seizure.” He’s all, “Nah. I don’t think that’s it.” So I ignore him and go call the pediatrician’s answering service. I go from the triage nurse’s voice changing completely once she hears what’s happened, to the on-call doctor saying she’s calling Children’s Hospital and will call me back immediately, to another call with her, to being told this is an emergency, to you may not be able to go on your planned trip to Yellowstone — we’ll let you know. My heart skipped 100 beats. We should’ve called 9-1-1. I felt like the worst mother ever known.

The next couple of days were multiple calls with bean’s regular pediatrician (love Dr. B) — who called THREE times to make sure we were okay. Who said, “The part that really sucks is she may never have another one, but you just never know.” And, “I’d keep a hand on her at all times when you’re near the thermals in Yellowstone.” And he may be the most mellow doctor I’ve ever met.

So this was serious. Serious enough that they prescribed a nasal emergency seizure-stopping med and told us we had to rent a satellite phone to go on the trip. Serious enough that we are to call 9-1-1 if she has another one. Serious enough that we were given an emergency appointment four short weeks later with the in-extremely-high-demand neurologist at Children’s.

I had to drive to the Anschutz campus of Children’s in south Denver just to get the Rx filled since no one else in maybe the entire Front Range will fill the prescription. And we had to rent a phone from a guy in California, who overnighted it to us — no problem. And off we went.

The horseback ride was my scariest moment of the whole trip. But once I heard the music of her incessant chatter with the head wrangler, my racing heart calmed and we settled into the pace of the trail

We made it home without incident. She may have even spent one night back in her own bed (after sleeping with me and sending the hubby to the couch for days and days).

The in-laws arrived just a few days later, so we were on an air mattress right outside of her bedroom for that whole week. Then the hubby and in-laws left on the same day, and we settled into a girls only week and it was almost like it had never happened.

The hubby came home for two short days. Weary and half-broken with a hurt back that landed us in Urgent Care on Sunday. And then he left. And then it was THE BIG DAY.

Teen Queen reluctantly came to support me. And bravely recounted the story over and over for the nurse, the neurologist. And the neuro exam with the gazillion questions, reflex tests, eye tracking. It was one of the longest days I’ve had in a long, long time.

We left at the end of the day with an EEG on the books and training for intranasal midazolam mastered.

There were theories floated and an indication of what this could be. How her history of migraines played into it all. How her restless sleeping ways that have us all playing roshambo to see who has to share a bed with her was something. How her late night sleep walk-and-talks were possibly a puzzle piece. The EEG was going to be the big reveal.

Said EEG was a 90-minute test that she had to be severely sleep-deprived for to get optimal results. And you can imagine how well that went over with newly arrived home from 2nd work trip broken boy/hubby. We quickly strategized. He had to work late (end of quarter) and TQ volunteered to stay up with him. So they took the up until midnight shift and I went to bed at 9:30 with an alarm set to wake up sleepy bean at 4am.

That was when she finally agreed to a post on social media. Up until that point she had said, “I really don’t want you talking about it. Please.” So I agreed. And only mentioned it to a very small few who happened to call when she wasn’t around. (Which is basically never since it’s summer and we are all up each others’ asses 24/7. Yay. Working from home.)
Bean was so nervous before the EEG that she was shaking. It went well though. They strobe-lighted her then hyperventilated her and then let her sleep at long last. It was like a mini-torture session starring my baby girl. And I somehow didn’t cry.

So then we waited. Until today. When the fabulous Dr. Yang called just as the hubby and I were ALONE in the car by some miracle. Her suspicions were confirmed by “some abnormalities” in my baby’s brain. Diagnosis (which I know you’ve all been waiting for): Benign Rolandic Epilepsy.

In spite of the fact that any time a pediatric neurologist calls you to tell you that your child has an official diagnosis based on abnormalities in the brain is cause for feeling like you may vomit, this isn’t all bad news.

She WILL grow out of it. Or at least is likely to. She may not ever have another one. And she doesn’t have to start meds yet.

The other part is they DO want to start her on migraine meds. So that is happening. And I asked for a MRI — which they willingly agreed to and, in fact, supported. So another test for bean. (And she ain’t happy.)

Otherwise, we are going to have to train the school on how to administer the seizure stopping drug (and any other camp or place she will spend any length of time). And she will not be able to swim or take a bath without eyes-on-her-at-all-times supervision.

It’s one of those mildly life-altering things that comes along and smacks you right in the face. Just when you thought it was summer and you could kick back a little.

Footnote: Hubby still isn’t better. But at least he’s home for a little while and we can pretend to be normal.

PS: HUGE thank you to Sean and Tina for jumping to my aid and answering my million+ questions when I felt like I was teetering on the edge of the abyss. Your insights calmed me more than you could know.

TODAY’S THEME SONG: I hear the drums echoing tonight. But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation. Africa. Toto.

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